Behavior has consequences! This applies both to individuals and to societies. Learn how most of the crises presented by politicians and the media can be traced to the cumulative effects of our own behavior in 5 key areas: Economic Understanding, Discipline, Responsibility, Critical Thinking, and Perspective. Ignoring behavior leads to failure; using this new model leads to real answers.
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Monday, July 31, 2017

This and That

Critical thinking leads to some interesting questions and observations.

A friend recently asked me why he has to pay for syringes for his
wife’s diabetes injections while drug addicts on the street can get them for
free, funded by taxpayers like him.

How can people plan to pay for their children’s education or
their own retirement when they can’t even plan for an annual vacation?“According to a survey by financial planning
company LearnVest, 74 percent of Americans have taken on debt to go on
vacation.The study surveyed 1,000
adults. It showed that, on average, Americans take on about $1,100 in debt
for each vacation.”

The article adds:“Around
55 percent of Americans forget to plan ahead for vacations when setting their
budget for the year, according to the survey. It also shows that one-third of
Americans would rather save money for a vacation than for a house or
retirement.”(See my earlier comments on
vacation planning and gasoline price.)

People are puzzling about the drastic increase in overweight
pets.An analysis from veterinary
clinics across the country of about 2.5 million dogs and 500,000 cats treated
last year found an increase of more than 150% in overweight dogs and cats over
the last 10 years.About 1 in 3 are
either overweight or obese.The only
surprise here is that they are still doing better than their owners.(Can I say owners or do I have to call them pet parents for fear of offending someone?)

What is the city council of Minneapolis thinking? They want to “require stores to
charge a fee for any type of bag — paper or plastic — they give out.”Can’t they see that this will hurt the poor
the most?Don’t they know that more
people know about recycling than know that cloth grocery bags should be washed
out periodically to avoid cross-contamination?

Two studies, one from University of
Washington and the other the University of California, Berkeley,
about the effects of the first tier of minimum wage increases in Seattle came
to different conclusions.One says it
hurts the workers; the other says the workers benefit.But Forbes reports there are “potential
problems with both studies.”The jury is
still out and many economists do agree that the potential success or failure
will be influenced by factors unique to the Seattle economy.This is why it’s so important to conduct most
of these experiments on the state and local level, rather than trying to impose
a one-size-fits-all solution from Washington, then wring our hands as flaws
later appear.

Here is a link to an informative table.It shows murder rates by state by year from
2001 to 2015 with highlights showing which states had the death penalty (also
by year).It appears that the death
penalty has no effect at all on the murder rates, even looking at data from individual
states that banned it during that time period.But some persist in defending capital punishment despite the fact that besides apparently not deterring crime, those
cases are many times more costly than comparable cases.

Also interesting is that, despite what we might hear on the
news or from politicians, the overall murder rate in America is half of what it
was in 1980.

It’s a strange world we live in.We all must be critical thinkers and question
rather than passively accept any idea just because it sounds good.

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About Me

is highly qualified to comment on the connection between our behavioral choices and the results we get. His formal education and training in observing and classifying behavior is supported by more than 40 years of practical business experience and 10 years of personal research. He is a West Point graduate with two Master’s degrees in business.
He is also a published author, Master Gardener and RYT200 yoga teacher.